That's why we are keeping our turbocharged diesel Opel 7-seater as a second car able to lug big stuff. Here, due to Gummint bureaucratic nonsense, the C is rated at 3 horsepower [!]
for it's insurance bracket, so with mileage restrictions I can insure both for less than one. All other motoring tax is on fuel, currently $7.50 per gallon for regular. That's a heap cheaper than Blighty- there it's going up again with 3% more tax in January- and diesel, which is little more than strained crude, now costs
more than 98 octane! The C is smaller than the standard Prius
and you can't tow anything. I'm told it's because the regenerative braking system can get overloaded by trailer mass and reduce battery life. The Toyota system only charges the nimh cells between 40% & 75% capacity - resulting in battery life of 300,000 miles/ 10 years plus, at 100% original efficiency it says here.
As an aside, if portable power tool makers introduced that derating idea in their chargers, one of the bugbears of good tools getting scrapped because of high replacement battery costs would be solved! I currently have 3 Makitas on the edge of extinction!
